Power of the purse

“ May I ask if I am indebted for the pleasure of your presence here to the fact of your having lost a purse?"
"A purse? On my soul and honour, sir, in my time I've lost hundreds--hundreds! Positively hundreds!"
I believe I gasped--he spoke with an airy indifference as if that kind of thing were commonplace.
"As I was saying to some of those fellows downstairs, if there's a man in England who has lost more things than I have, I should like to meet him. It's a genius I have; as sure as I get a thing I lose it. And the more it costs, the more it's lost. As for purses, they're my strongest point. ”

“ That gentlemen and ladies, when called upon to give alms, or to defray some trifling incidental expense, are in the invariable habit of giving the whole contents of their purses without examination, and, moreover, of “throwing” the purse into the bargain, is an idea most erroneously entertained. ”

“ The purse is the point round which the whole system of politics turned ever since the origin of the country. The war for and against a bank did, indeed, agitate the United States before they were quite ushered into existence ”

“ It calls for but one condition: That you keep all your money—bills and change—in it and spend only from it. If this is faithfully done, within twenty-four hours you will have saved enough to buy one—no, two stamps; which at the present price will come to eight dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
To Van Tenner’s skeptical eye the purse placed in his hand seemed an ordinary-enough affair—a cheap, flattish wallet, without distinguishing mark until he opened it and found, set into the flap, a celluloid tablet flanked by a small pencil. ”

“ She fumbled her purse which contained the address slip.
He reached down in his hip pocket and took out a fat purse. It was filled with slips of paper, some mileage books, a roll of greenbacks. It impressed her deeply. Such a purse had never been carried by any one attentive to her. Indeed, an experienced traveller, a brisk man of the world, had never come within such close range before. The purse, the shiny tan shoes, the smart new suit, and the air with which he did things, built up for her a dim world of fortune, of which he was the centre. ”

“ I always take the precaution of having a delicate little purse in my pocket; and when the man says, as he always does, ‘I don’t know,’ I pull out the purse, and say, ‘I am sorry for that, for she dropped this as she came in, and I wanted to return it to her.’ The porter at once becomes awfully civil ”

“ The purse is fat enough to excite the cupidity of a dishonest man, who, nine times out of ten, will pay the sharper out of his own pocket, rather than open the purse and let him see what there is in it. ”

“ I want to know, being your possible husband. My notion of the perfection of money arrangements is that of a fairy purse which every day should hold so much, and there an end of trouble. Houses and land always seem like a vineyard to a man who wants a draught of wine for present thirst: so tell me how much will be found in the purse—because when we are in Italy or halfway there telling will be superfluous or beyond remedy,—easy remedy at least. ”

“ Nor will your purse, however readily opened, suffice, you must give to me also your time and your thoughts; for money sent by others, to others only will afford relief; to enlighten your own cares, you must distribute it yourself. ”

“ I have the most beautiful little purse in the world, but it is only kept for show; I even find myself under the necessity of counterfeiting—that is, filling the void with tissue paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping expedition. ”

“ On recovering my senses, I hastened to quit a place where I hoped there was nothing further to detain me. I first filled my pockets with gold, then fastened the strings of the purse round my neck, and concealed it in my bosom. ”

“ The small payment to-day comes out of the same purse, and is coined out of the same specie, and is part of the same currency of the same kingdom, as what we get when we go yonder and count the endless riches to which we have fallen heirs at last. ”

“ German gold, English bank-notes, letters of credit, foreign bills of exchange, bankers' cheques—untold wealth in every form and variety of currency. The man must have carried some seven or eight hundred pounds about his person. And that wasn't all either. There were letters in the purse, too—letters which, of course, Guy couldn't dream of looking at ”

“ Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles for, and not wanting to.
So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever complained.
It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers and—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble. It's like swimming through spaghetti. ”

“ A young lady with a well-filled purse (no matter how rich the young lady may be) is a combination not often witnessed in any country on the civilized earth. Either the money is always spent, or the money has been forgotten on the toilet-table at home. Blanche’s purse contained a sovereign and some six or seven shillings in silver. As pocket-money for an heiress it was contemptible. But as a gratuity to Bishopriggs it was magnificent. ”

“ It is most imprudent to ride in an omnibus with much money in your purse. Pickpockets of genteel appearance are too frequently among the passengers. We know a gentleman who in this way lost a pocket-book containing eighty dollars; and various ladies have had their purses taken from them, by well-dressed passengers. If you are obliged to have money of any consequence about you, keep your hand all the time in that pocket. ”

“ The great seal of England is borne by the purse-bearer in a purse, usually styled “ burse,” decorated with the arms of the kingdom, the “ burse " being thus one of the insignia of office of the lord chancellor of England. The “ privy purse ” is the amount of public money set apart in the civil list for the private and personal use of the sovereign (see Privy Purse) . ”

“ I haven't opened my purse since those bills were brought into the house until just now in my office. You must have put the bills somewhere else. Look in your purse."
"I tell you I put the money in your purse," replied Mrs. Lively with asperity, at the same time opening her purse with an impatient movement. "It isn't here: I knew it wasn't. I tell you again I put it in your purse, and you've dropped it out somewhere."
"But I haven't opened the purse till a moment since in my office," the doctor reiterated. ”

“ Without having spoken a word of love the lovers knew that they were all in all to one another. Hippolyte enjoyed exerting his power over his gentle little friend, and many concessions were made to him by Adelaide, who, timid and devoted to him, was quite deceived by the assumed fits of temper, such as the least skilled lover and the most guileless girl can affect; and which they constantly play off, as spoilt children abuse the power they owe to their mother’s affection. Thus all familiarity between the girl and the old Count was soon put a stop to. ”

“ There was a long silence between them, Daniel nervously tapping his foot on the fender before which he sat, and Walter lounging back in his chair, looking so lazy and indifferent, it was difficult for Daniel to believe that this man held in his hands the power to force a man like himself, rich, influential, secure, to give up a large part of his annual income. ”

“ Is there a man here who expects that he, or his children, or his children's children, shall see the day when only gold coin, glittering through silk purses, will be the currency of the country, to the entire exclusion of bank notes? ”

“ For their purse, being so oft visited, cannot stay always swelled out and at its full capacity, like the purse in front, which is ever in the same condition, and ever ready for whosoever wills to fish therein, without the captives that have entered and come forth again of the same finding a word to say against it. ”

“ Ingenuity, doubtless instigated by the beggar’s purse, is entitled to half credit. E. Van Tenner took the elevator—free—to his room and hung his hat and coat—gratis—in the clothes press. The room, he noted with satisfaction, was precisely the same as the five-dollar variety except that it was a few floors higher. He entered one dollar saved on room, ten cents each on washroom and coat check; and descending passed, unarmored but unscathed, the gantlet of the disarmed horseleech’s great-granddaughters. Already his total was two dollars and eighty cents. Good progress toward one stamp! ”

“ To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands off the table, and he then saw before him a purse which Adelaide had slipped in front of him without his noticing it; the poor child had the old one in her hand, and, to keep her countenance, was looking into it for the money to pay her mother. The blood rushed to Hippolyte’s heart with such force that he was near fainting. ”

“ Business took up the rest of the afternoon; business in which the purse played an honorable and unprotesting part, though its course at one point called for a taxi expenditure of something more than two dollars. That, however, was to save necessary time. E. Van Tenner was relieved to find the magic receptacle so reasonable. He began to feel that he could live on terms of amity and confidence with it indefinitely. But when he came to pay the chauffeur the wallet produced the exact amount with a precision that he could not but feel to be significant. ”

“ Because Money made of Gold and Silver is the best Rule of Commerce, and must therefore be equal, or else it is no Rule; ”

“ For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. ”

“ Across the top of the tablet ran the legend “What’s the good?”
“A colloquial expression of the philosophy of indifference,” observed E. Van Tenner with a smile.
“On the contrary,” retorted the beggar, “it is a serious and profound inquiry into first causes. The magic inheres in it. Under-stand, now: You are not to scrimp and scrooge at all. Parsimony by people who can afford to spend does harm, not good. And this magic, being white magic, works only for good. But if you undertake to remove money from that purse for any purely wasteful purpose the magic will be loosed ”

“ Now the bottom of a golf bag is about the last spot on earth where anyone would expect to find a missing purse; yet, as devotees of this sport will agree, a more admirable place of concealment could scarcely be imagined. Far down in a jumble of heavy clubs the purse lies unseen by the keenest eye and beyond reach of the longest arm. To search the bottom of a golf bag would involve taking out all the clubs and turning the bag upside down, but who would do that? ”

“ The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. It is to be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ. ”

“ To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.” ”

“ When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money? ”

“ In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency. ”

“ Money is made at Christmas out of holly and mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch were procurable? One symbol, indeed, has obscured all others—the minted round of metal. And one may safely say that, of all the ages since a coin first became the symbol of power, ours is that in which it yields to the majority of its possessors the poorest return in heart’s contentment. ”

“ 'When you want to have money safely kept and not used.' Then justice will be useful when money is useless. ”

“ Money, and not morality, is the principle of commerce and commercial nations. ”

“ The beggar was there awaiting him.
“Well?” said he.
“Yes,” said E. Van Tenner.
“Two stamps?”
“And two cents over for a third. The magic worked.”
“What about the price of the lessons?”
“Lessons?”
“Haven’t you learned anything in the last twenty-four hours?”
E. Van Tenner considered. “I’ve learned that every time I spend a dollar I spend an extra quarter for vanity and a dime for timidity. I’ve learned how to go without things I don’t want, and to stop doing things I dislike myself for doing. I’ve learned the difference between parsimony and thrift.” ”

“ Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates. ”

“ but being in, "Beare it that the opposed may beware of thee, "Costly thy apparrell, as thy purse can buy. ”

“ Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the treasure and moneys, in a state, be not gathered into few hands. For otherwise a state may have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. ”

“ The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity. ”

“ and again, Not to oversee Workmen, is to leave them your Purse open. ”

“ And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success. ”

“ Cash Payment the sole nexus; and there are so many things which cash will not pay! Cash is a great miracle; yet it has not all power in Heaven, nor even on Earth. 'Supply and demand' we will honour also; and yet how many 'demands' are there, entirely indispensable, which have to go elsewhere than to the shops, and produce quite other than cash, before they can get their supply? On the whole, what astonishing payments does cash make in this world! ”